Activism

The History of the Future: A Franklin Furnace View of Performance Art

Welcome to The History of the Future: A Franklin Furnace View of Performance Art. This disc set is based upon a live event that took place at the Abrons Art Center in New York City on April 27, 2007. Within this box set, you'll find performances from that event as well as historical videos that capture the thrills and chills of performance art during the last 30 years.

Surveying the First Decade: Volume 2

This comprehensive package on the history of experimental and independent video is an essential tool for teachers, libraries, and researchers. Volumes 1 and 2 include over 16 hours of historic video on eight thematically curated programs, exploring conceptual, performance-based, image-processed, feminist, documentary and grassroots community-based genres.

Volume 2 includes:

Program 5: Performance of Video-Imaging Tools

Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the U.S. 1968-1980

Since its original release in 1995, this comprehensive two-volume, eight-program package on the history of experimental and independent video curated by Christine Hill was available only on VHS tape. The DVD launch brings this essential tool for the understanding of the development of media arts to a whole new generation of teachers, libraries, students and researchers.

Paul Garrin

Paul Garrin Videoworks: Volume 1

Garrin advocates the use of video as an activist and community tool and a means for people to represent themselves. These three pieces examine the Tompkins Square riots, police harassment, and the use of home video equipment to record a truly democratic local news.

“Once ‘Big Brother’ was the state watching the people, now the people can begin watching the state.”

—Paul Garrin

Coco Fusco

a/k/a Mrs. George Gilbert

11/09 -- Now available for educational purchase!

a/k/a Mrs. George Gilbert extends Coco Fusco’s in-depth examination of racialized imagery. Fusco combines fictional and documentary source materials to reflect on the use of electronic surveillance against black intellectuals and activists in the 1960s and 1970s as part of covert FBI operations that bear a striking resemblance to the current Patriot Act-inspired activities of American law enforcement.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Border Art Clásicos (1990-2005): An Anthology of Collaborative Video Works by Guillermo Gómez-Peña

An Anthology of Collaborative Works by Guillermo Gómez-Peña

This "conceptual package" of collaborative videos and writings by leading theorists is a unique opportunity for students, artists and educators to explore the psyche, experimental aesthetics, activist ethos and spiritual cosmology of legendary rebel artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

With filmmakers:

Isaac Artenstein, Adriene Jenik, Patrick Litchy, Jethro Rothe-Kushel, Daniel Salazar, Henry Sayre & Sandy Brooke, Roberto Sifuentes, Liz Singer, Gustavo Vazquez

Charged in the name of terror

Video portraits of activists, lawyers, artists, and people simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, accused by the U.S. government of being or aiding terrorists, in these great times. Official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. An ongoing series curated and produced by artist Paul Chan. A portion of the royalties earned by this program will be paid into The Friends of Claude Cahun Fund, and will fund future works in the series.

Ho Tam

The Books of James

Through a stack of personal journals, this video reconstructs a biography of the South Dakota-born, New York City-enlightened artist James Wentzy. Tracing his days starting out as a struggling artist and later involved as an AIDS activist, the video provides an intimate portrait of a neglected hero. Wentzy reads from journals and shares old family snapshots and notebook sketches. “I hope I don’t die of sainthood,” Wentzy jokes in an entry from 1990—the pivotal time when he was becoming involved with ACT-UP and beginning to live healthier after the revelation of his HIV-positive status.

Michael Gitlin

The Earth Is Young

The Earth Is Young takes as its starting point a series of interviews conducted with Young Earth Creationists, who find evidence of a six-day, six-thousand-year old creation in their reading of the fossil and geological record. The film frames these encounters with depictions of the slow and patient work of young paleontologists, and the strange, shimmering life in a drop of pond water, both of which point toward a world far older and more complex, if no less fantastic.

Diane Nerwen, Les LeVeque

Dissing D.A.R.E.: Education as Spectacle

D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a hyper-war waged on over 20 million children in the United States. Despite overwhelming evidence of its educational ineffectiveness, D.A.R.E. has gained a religious following among educators and parents, and is the only federally-funded drug education program. D.A.R.E.'s imagistic and psychological assault is based on the presence of uniformed gun-toting police officers in the classroom.

C Hundred Film Corp.

Direct Effect PSAs--Volume 2

This video collects public service announcements created by a number of independent producers, including Jem Cohen and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Powerful and provocative, these PSAs address issues such as organic farming, abortion rights, street harassment, and the environment. Included are:

They Have Dreams by Natalie Merchant and Abigail Simon which focuses on the plight of homeless children.

C Hundred Film Corp.

Direct Effect PSAs--Volume 3

The third compilation in this series of progressive, creative public service announcements for under-reported issues. Featuring various styles and formats, from street photography to optical printing, from edgy black and white film to hand-drawn animation, the seven spots in this latest installment are:

The Breathing Tree by Eric Darnell and Doug Loveid, an animated easy-to-understand explanation of how forests contribute to life by producing oxygen.

C Hundred Film Corp.

Direct Effect PSAs--Volume 1

The first of the series includes:

What Does Away Mean? by Jem Cohen advertises the need to recycle through reconsideration of landfills and garbage disposal.

Pro-Choice is Pro-Life by Jane Pratt makes its point with the simple logic that every child should be cared for and wanted.

Historic Preservation by Jim McKay counsels for the preservation of historic buildings endangered by urban decay.

Suzanne Lacy

Dinner at Jane's

Executive produced by Sara Diamond at the Banff Art Centre, co-produced by Michelle Baughn and Suzanne Lacy, directed by Tom Weinberg and Dick Carter, and edited by Holen Kahn.

Videofreex

Davidson's Jail Tape

Footage from the May Day 1971 events in Washington DC. Davidson, a Videofreex member, gets arrested, and what follows is rarely seen footage of the inside of the detainment bus and the jail cell, videotaped by an arrestee. The scene on the bus is rowdy, while the scenes at the jail are somewhat more low key--men lounging around, somebody playing a guitar, a Frisbee game. But over time, the cell becomes increasingly more crowded, and the program culminates in the inmates plotting how they will get out.

Activism

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